Top Storage Predictions for 2008

Happy New Year! Like everyone else this week, the turn of 2008 has us looking ahead. And as we always do, we're joining the chorus of storage networking crystal-ball gazers.

Below is our annual look at what the upcoming months will bring to our corner of IT. Some trends got underway last year and made it onto our list of 2007 predictions. Examples: the ascendancy of virtualization as a means of consolidating and optimizing data center resources, and the increased use of storage services. Other tea leaf tales are just emerging.

As ever, feel free to disagree. That's what message boards are for! (At least in part.) Without further ado, here are our key predictions for 2008:

Email management will continue to grow. Hassles with Exchange and the need to save everything for regulatory reasons has IT homing in on email storage as never before. The end of 2007 saw a flurry of consolidation among players that we think heralds even more activity to come. Expect to see a ton of tools and services to help organize and store email.

Storage will get greener. EMC's recent endorsement of MAID and hefty funding for Copan are just two of the latest indications that array vendors are seriously focused on energy-saving techniques. Faced with overall cost reductions and shrinking IT real estate, IT professionals are signaling their demand for equipment that is more efficient.Storage virtualization will take shape. Recent innovations by companies like EMC, HDS, IBM, and VMware show there's lively interest in expanding the virtualization capabilities of storage arrays. While users are cautious on the topic, we think this trend will start to build momentum as the need for storage consolidation and cost cutting continue.

Security will rule. Data breaches aren't getting rarer, they're on the increase, and with high-profile disasters like the recent shocker in the U.K., the need to protect data will come into sharper focus. Removeable storage will be get particular attention, given its tendency to factor in high-profile snafus. Expect further developments in encryption and associated key management.

Services will gather momentum. Storage services are already a key element of IT co-location and hosting suppliers, earning them a spot on our list of last year's biggest technology winners. And that trend will continue this year, as companies of all sizes look to offload the responsibility and expense associated with sophisticated data management and protection. One aspect of this trend will be storage as a service, a direction taken by EMC.

Data reduction will proceed apace. De-duplication, data compression, WAN optimization, and other methods of reducing the bulk of stored data accounted for a sizeable portion of storage funding in 2007. Natch, that leads us to expect more activity in this space next year.

Data recovery will take center stage. The growing popularity of disk-based backup, CDP, and other technologies geared to fast retrieval of stored data will continue. Indeed, we think the speed and ease of recovery will determine which backup and archiving products get stronger, and which fall by the wayside.Startups will be challenged. Tough times make for tough times. As IT purse strings tighten, we think many smaller storage-related players will join larger companies already on the hot seat. Who comes to mind? Agami, Pillar, and 3Leaf, to name just a few.

Web 2.0 will be a storage term. At EMC's recent Innovation Day, CEO Joe Tucci spoke of upcoming Internet-based products code-named "Hulk" and "Maui" that will be aimed specifically at Internet hosting firms. "This is hardware and software aimed at Web 2.0 and 'cloud computing' companies," said Tucci. We think much innovation this year will follow this model.

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